“Otello” by Giuseppe Verdi

Notes on the Libretto

Arrigo Boito’s libretto for Verdi’s Otello is more than a condensation of Shakespeare’s tragedy. The Venetian opening of Othello disappears: the opera begins in Cyprus amid a violent storm, while the lovers’ earlier history emerges through their Act I duet. Iago’s Credo in un Dio crudel (“I believe in a cruel God”) is another significant departure. Rather than adapting an existing Shakespearean speech, Boito gives Iago a new declaration of his merciless philosophy.

In preparing the Italian–English side-by-side text, several small transcription and translation errors required attention. In Otello’s description of Desdemona’s handkerchief, lo stame arcano (“the mysterious thread”) had become Io stame arcano through a confusion between lowercase l and capital I. Elsewhere, Iago’s exclamation Ahi stolto! stolto! had been rendered as “Ah, stupidity! Stupidity!” The corrected “Ah, fool! Fool!” restores the personal insult directed at Roderigo.

A further editorial decision concerned character names. Boito’s Italian libretto uses Jago, while the English text uses Iago. The title character, however, is consistently called Otello in both columns, reserving Othello for Shakespeare’s play. This distinction preserves the conventions of each language without introducing unnecessary inconsistencies into the parallel text.